Great news!  For our Arctic Ocean.  Recent wins give me so much hope!   Sierra Club is part of the Alaska Coalition that helped with this effort. Phyllis

 

 

 

ALASKA WILDERNESS LEAGUE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 30, 2014

Contact: Gwen Dobbs, Alaska Wilderness League, [log in to unmask], 202-329-9295

No 2014 Shell Arctic drilling: Shell should walk away from the Arctic completely

WASHINGTON – Early this morning, Shell Oil Company announced that it was backing out of drilling in the Arctic Ocean for 2014. This announcement comes on the heels of a Ninth Circuit ruling that the Department of the Interior violated the law when it sold offshore oil and gas leases in the Chukchi Sea off the coast of Alaska, including the leases where Shell wants to drill. The Court said the Department made arbitrary assumptions about development that may have underestimated the potential environmental impacts of the sale in violation of a bedrock environmental law and sent the decision back for the agency to reconsider.

Statement by Cindy Shogan, Executive Director, Alaska Wilderness League:

“Today’s announcement that Shell is backing off drilling in the Arctic is no surprise, given the Ninth Circuit’s recent ruling that its leases were deemed illegal. Given these recent events, the Department of the Interior should reevaluate its Arctic drilling efforts, including reconsidering Chukchi lease sale 193 through a full new Environmental Impact Statement.

Shell’s 2012 program was a disaster where its mishaps culminated with its drilling rig running aground near Kodiak Island, Alaska, at the end of 2012, demonstrating to the nation that no oil company is ready to drill in the Arctic. Shell Oil was forced to abandon its plans to drill in the Arctic Ocean in 2013 due to its own lack of preparedness and technical failures, together with Alaska’s harsh and unpredictable conditions.

Shell’s proposed 2014 plans were even riskier and dirtier than 2013. As the Wall Street Journal underscores, Shell is forced to abandon its plans because of poor planning and lack of priorities, saying the Shell for now has bitten off more than it can chew and states, ‘[w]e will have to wait at least a year to see if Shell is prepared to write off all that spending, and walk away completely.’ We can’t trust oil companies – the Arctic is no place to experiment.”

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